PEW Research Center Report: Most immigrants arrested by ICE have prior criminal convictions, a big change from 2009

Immigrants with past criminal convictions accounted for 74% of all arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in fiscal 2017, according to data from the agency. The remainder were classified as “non-criminal” arrestees, including 16% with pending criminal charges and 11% with no known criminal convictions or charges.The profile of arrestees by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations has changed considerably in the past eight years: In fiscal 2009, the earliest yearwith comparable data, immigrants without past criminal convictionsaccounted for the majority (61%) of those arrested by the agency.

Overall, the number of ICE arrests decreased sharply during that span, from 297,898 in 2009 (the year President Barack Obama came into office) to 143,470 in 2017 (when President Donald Trump took office). However, last year’s total representeda 30% increase from the year before, with most of the increase coming after Trump signed an executive order to step upenforcement.

While ICE arrests overall rose from 2016 to 2017, arrests for those withoutprior convictions drove the increase. The number of arrestees without known convictions increased 146% (up more than 22,000 arrests), compared with a12% rise among those with past criminal convictions (up nearly 11,000). Still, the bulk of those arrested in 2016 and 2017 had prior convictions.

ICE arrests can happen in a variety of ways. The agency relies ongovernment data bases to help track fugitives, and it can detain suspects in courthouses. But in most cases, ICE takes custody of people after local or state police have arrested them.
Read more at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...nge-from-2009/

Comments

Does this report indicate the level of criminal convictions or charges that immigrants are being arrested for, or is ICE mainly engaged in helping to rid America of the scourge of immigrant DUI's, trespassers, or petty shoplifters?

Does this report indicate the level of criminal convictions or charges that immigrants are being arrested for, or is ICE mainly engaged in helping to rid America of the scourge of immigrant DUI's, trespassers, or petty shoplifters?

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law

I don't know which criminal convictions are being prioritized, but I am sure that deportations are limited to aliens who have been found deportable by immigration judges and are subject to final orders of deportation.

I take issue with Roger's apparent objection to the deportation of aliens convicted of DUIs.

According to the US Department of Transportation, "every day, almost 29 people in the United States die in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes—that's one person every 50 minutes in 2016. Drunk-driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades; however, drunk-driving crashes claim more than 10,000 lives per year. In 2010, the most recent year for which cost data is available, these deaths and damages contributed to a cost of $44B per year."
For more information, go tohttps://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls?gclid=...YaAtOYEALw_wcB
But apparently, Roger thinks keeping undocumented aliens convicted of DUIs in the country is more important than taking drunk drivers off the road.

Nolan cites statistics showing that 10,000 people are killed by DUI drivers every year - showing that this is an American problem, not an immigration one.

Scapegoating a comparative handful of immigrants by deporting them, breaking up their families and leaving their American children without one of their parents (or, often, the family's only breadwinner) for something which is as American as apple pie will not make America any safer from drunk drivers.

But it will make America whiter, which we can be sure that the Trump administration cares a good deal more about than road safety.

Nolan cites statistics showing that 10,000 people are killed by DUI drivers every year - showing that this is an American problem, not an immigration one.

Scapegoating a comparative handful of immigrants by deporting them, breaking up their families and leaving their American children without one of their parents (or, often, the family's only breadwinner) for something which is as American as apple pie will not make America any safer from drunk drivers.

But it will make America whiter, which we can be sure that the Trump administration cares a good deal more about than road safety.

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law

Roger says that drunk driving is "as American as apple pie," so why bother to deport an alien who has been convicted for driving while intoxicated. That is the most irrational argument I have ever heard.

By the same reasoning, we shouldn't deport aliens convicted of murder either. According to FBI crime statistics, there were17,250 murders in 2016. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s...c-pages/murder That's considerably more than the 10,000 deaths that were caused by drunken drivers that year. Ergo, murder is as American as apple pie too.

So Roger would have Congress remove murder from the list of deportation grounds too.

Incidentally, Trump had nothing to do with making DUI a deportation ground. I was on the House floor when the Republicans added it to a bill. They were outraged by the fact that intoxicated aliens who had managed to escape deportation had killed families in car accidents.

I had to write talking points for the Democratic members who opposed the amendment. It didn't occur to me to say that drunken drivers killing people on the highway was as American as apple pie. Just as well. I probably would have been fired if I had included that argument in the talking points I wrote that day.

Yes, DUI is admittedly more serious than petty theft or trespassing, which are also being used as pretexts for deporting "criminal aliens" by this administration. But, unless there is an accident resulting in actual harm, most Americans in involved in DUI get a slap on the wrist. Black, Latino and Asian immigrants get deported.

Road safety is not the Trump administration's priority here.

While this is not directly related to immigration (in most cases) would Nolan care to tell us where he stands on gun control, something even many Republican politicians, including Trump himself, are finally recognizing is urgently needed for the safety and security of the American people, and which would save thousands more American lives each year than using DUI as just another pretext to make America whiter through increased deportations?

And if DUI is so serious that it justifies the cruelty of breaking up families and destroying lives that deportation often involves, here's a suggestion that Nolan might want to consider - giving lower deportation priority from deportation to immigrants who can demonstrate that they avoid alcohol - including Muslims, who are forbidden by their religion to drink alcohol entirely.

Another way of cutting down on DUI by immigrants might be to adopt immigration policies that are more friendly toward immigrants from Muslim countries.

Then Americans could drive and walk the streets with more assurance of protection against the dreaded scourge of DUI drivers.

Revoking Trump's latest Muslim ban order would be a step to be considered toward the worthy goal of greater road safety in America.

To the extent allowed by the Constitution, the Trump administration might also want to institute some kind of program to encourage more American Muslims to attend mosques so that they could receive encouragement from their religious leaders to remain steadfast in their avoidance of the alcoholic drinks which lead to so many tragic accidents every year caused by American drunk drivers of other religious backgrounds.